


Among Beasts

by lonelywalker



Category: Le Pacte des Loups | Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)
Genre: Historical, Interracial Relationship, M/M, Yuletide 2006
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-19
Updated: 2011-04-19
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:26:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the French colonies, a friendship born out of necessity develops into something much deeper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Among Beasts

_Excerpted from the journal of the soldier and naturalist, Grégoire de Fronsac. Translated from the French._

I

 _15th March, 1759. Trois-Rivières._

I am here. These were the words that opened my journal when I arrived in New France so many months ago. Despite the fact that I must apologise to you, my future self, for having neglected my records over the past few weeks, the words are still true, although I have had recent reason to wish them false.

My failure to make an accurate history of recent days is, I think, all the more troubling because I have finally acquired some news worth committing to paper. Perhaps I can beg your forgiveness by relating the reasons why these very events have prevented me from taking up my pen and continuing my story of life in the colonies.

Several weeks ago, I was attacked by a bear. Sadly I cannot describe to you the beast's exact proportions and visage, even with the aid of sketches, because my memory is an unfortunate blank. The only evidence I have, apart from the excited and unreliable accounts of my hunting party, are the claw marks gored into my chest that have kept me fevered and perilously close to death. In time, perhaps, I will measure the scars and judge the size of the bear. For now, the healing wounds threaten to tear apart should I so much as move my arm. Writing these very words is a trial - a worthwhile one, I hope.

I have thought, many times, and often in a feverish state, about why I am still alive. The bears in these parts are much larger than a man - faster, hugely strong - and it has been said that this particular animal took several bullets from my party before retreating. They have talked of going after it again, once matters closer to home become calmer. I have tried to explain that causing the death of a dumb beast would be a poor revenge for a naturalist, but my words have fallen on deaf ears. I suspect that, in order to succeed at my new, conscripted position, I must learn to think a little more like a soldier.

Still, I am healing, and I will live. Yesterday was my first venture out of bed in several weeks, and it was only then that I came to realise just how quickly events move in these parts when one is not available to witness them. My journal entries up to this point, I realise, looking back, have been a litany of boredom only occasionally annotated by thoughts on Parisian philosophy, or by sketches of wildlife. I have been deluding myself. Perhaps I came to New France with the aim of cataloguing its species, of discovering new wonders to behold, and even to win some acclaim on my return to Paris. My life, now, however, is not one of a scientist. It is one of a soldier: nasty, brutish, and - I forecast with no horror - likely to be short. If only I were in my study in Paris, reading Hobbes rather than proving him correct.

The true horrors of this place are not, as I might have expected, beasts like the one that tried its best to rip my heart from my body, but the ones we have brought with us. I have written before regarding the captain of my company, Cabel. Previously, my impressions of him had been good ones. I had expected to meet a gruff, hardened veteran with old-fashioned concepts of battle dating back to medieval times. Cabel, however, is a younger son of the nobility, much on a social scale with myself. He is hardly an intellectual (were he so inclined, it is doubtful he would be here at all), but he has a quick brain and, in the past, has been eager to solicit and to take my advice. I realise now that I underestimated his guile.

During my fever, and enforced exile from the military affairs of Trois-Rivières, Cabel executed a plan that must have been stirring in his mind for many weeks. The fact that he kept it from me is, I hope, testament to the fact that he knew of my comparatively high moral stature.

There are several tribes of Iroquois Indians who live and hunt within a day's ride of the town. Some come here to trade. Others come here to kill. It is in the nature of man to reject uniformity for himself, and see it in others. I am perhaps doing Cabel an immense - and hopefully not undeserved - credit by assuming he mistook the traders for warriors. Something deep within me suggests that malice, not strategy, drove his hand.

The details are still sketchy, and it is likely that they no longer matter. The men involved seem reluctant to speak with me, and I do not trust myself to maintain civility in speaking with Cabel himself. The only other witness... But I am getting ahead of myself.

 _Variola vera_. Smallpox. A scourge of Europe well known to me, and completely alien to the Iroquois. I am no physician, but its effects are obvious to anyone with eyes and a brain. Thankfully I have been inoculated against the disease, as have all of my company. Others who travelled to the colonies were not so well-prepared, and many have died far from home. The Iroquois had no preparation at all: no skilled doctors, no inoculations, and no way to recognise symptoms. Had they sought help, I doubt that they would have found any at Trois-Rivières. Besides, there was little help we could have given them, even with the best intentions.

It sickens me to relate that the cause of their deaths was no accidental transmission of the disease. Cabel arranged for the blankets of our smallpox victims to be given to an Iroquois tribe as foul gifts. I suppose it does him some small favour to say that at least he did not make them pay for their own executions. Their bodies and their camp have now been burned to the ground. I was not there to witness it, but I can imagine the stench of seared flesh lingering in the air for days. The men to whom I have spoken say that they will never return to that camp. They may have been happy enough to murder living men, women, and children, but ghosts are a different matter.

This may also be the reason why I have been left alone today, to compose this entry and to recover from my wounds in peace. The deaths of those Iroquois, horrible as they may have been, are in the past. The memories will fade. This is why we men can commit acts of such brutal atrocity over and over again. There is one element of this act, however, that remains very much real: the only witness I could find.

He is here, now, watching me write the tale of his people's murder. I have little idea why he survived. Perhaps he was somehow immune. Perhaps he was lucky enough to be away from the camp during the crucial time. I do not know. Cabel's men took him captive, and brought him back to Trois-Rivières. He has the bruise of a rifle-butt blackening his temple, so that explains the how of his capture. The why is much less certain, although the men who brought him to me, his hands tied, suggested something about him serving as our translator. I have no illusions that he will work willingly, and I have little interest in forcing him to do so. Only a few scant weeks ago, I would have been eager to further our communication with the Iroquois. Now I fear - I know - that any tribes we befriend will likely meet their deaths at our hands.

His name is Mani, as far as I can tell without knowing his language. He professes not to know mine, although his speech in general is limited. I have little idea whether that token is a given name, a family name, a title, or some indication that I should attempt to fornicate with myself. We shall see.

 

II.

 _6th April, 1759. Trois-Rivières._

It seems that I may be fated to relate only tragedies in this journal. At least I have shed no tears, and expect no sleepless nights, as a result of this latest occurrence. I should have seen it coming. I suspect that I cannot be entirely honest in saying that I did not. Had I been entirely healthy, I can imagine that the crime would have been done by my hand. But that is all conjecture. I am here to relate the facts.

His name, as I have mentioned before, is Mani. It has been three weeks since he was first delivered to me: dazed, bereft, wrists worn bloody by the rub of too-tight bonds. Since then, we have exchanged some words of French, and others of his language. We appear to be at an equal disadvantage. The other Europeans of my acquaintance in Trois-Rivières hold the Iroquois in some contempt. They have (or had) no firearms, no stone buildings, no professions of science or literature. Their tongue is, to a European ear at least, unintelligible babble like that of a small child. As a naturalist, I had hoped to find myself capable of rising above such miniscule differences in culture. Mani has made this an easy task.

I feared, initially, that he would not talk at all. He had little reason to be cooperative. Even though I had no part in the murder of what must have been his entire extended family, he had no way of differentiating me from all the other French soldiers who dealt that heartless blow against his people. I attempted to put myself into his (figurative) shoes. In such a state of depression I would have been hard pressed to utter a single word that was not a curse, or a vow for revenge. But he told me his name, and I told him mine.

 _Fronsac_. I wonder if it sounds as alien to his ears as his language does to mine. We have little idea how insignificant we are until a name - that which has distinguished us from any other person since birth, that which _defines_ us - becomes hollow in the mouth of a man to whom it means nothing. I had no reason to try and impress upon him any concept of my noble birth, or my qualifications. For all I knew, he was prince of everything between the oceans, and I but a guest in his land.

Ordinarily, I would present him to you in a sketch, richly coloured and detailed, to preserve him as a historical curiosity. However, the Iroquois are typically uncomfortable with drawings, and Mani is no different. The first time I attempted an outline, still stiff and sore from my encounter with the bear, he knocked the pencil from my hand. I cried out in a mixture of pain and surprise, and was immediately rescued by two passing soldiers, convinced that Mani was trying to kill me. They had already thrown him to the floor and begun to kick him into submission by the time I was able to call them off. But it had not been violence towards me. It had been a necessity given the lack of communication. I suspect that I would have done no different, had someone attempted to steal my soul. I only hoped that Mani would understand the same about the actions of the soldiers.

As I have implied, he is no idiot. It may very well be that he is ignorant and illiterate, but I can hardly condemn an Iroquois for being oblivious to Voltaire, Diderot, or Locke. He seems eager to learn, and has been examining my sketches - the one language in which we can converse freely - with great interest. It is through these, and with a large amount of frequently childish mime, that we have been able to communicate.

The following I can say with some certainty, by way of a description: He is a man, with apparently no significant physical differences from any European man one might meet. Certainly, his skin is of a darker palette than most men currently walking the streets of Paris, but he is neither a Negro nor "red" in any manner I can see. He is no more foreign by appearance than a blond-haired man from the North. His eyes are dark and quick, and he has extraordinarily long black hair. I am sure there are a few ladies at court who might envy the tresses of this savage. It extends down to his lower back, although I suspect he must tie it somehow when hunting. As one might expect, he is of the lean and muscular type. Most of the Iroquois are, but something about the fluidity of his movement suggests that his physique can be directly attributed to his occupation.

The last addition to this description is a feature I find it almost impossible to describe in words. He has a very beautiful, very ornate green-black tattoo over his left breast, extending down his arm and over his ribs to his navel. I have tried to ask him about it, but either the explanation is impossible through our play-acting communication, or he simply does not wish to discuss it.

It is strange, this profession of mine. Would it were so easy as committing the very soul of the thing I observe to paper. Instead, I sketch rough impressions, as best I understand them, always aware that I am but a fallible witness, and there is always the possibility that I have misunderstood, or omitted something vital from my study.

This morning, before dawn, Mani killed Captain Cabel.

Can I truly claim to have been oblivious to the thoughts in his head? I had already committed to this journal Cabel's responsibility for the murder of Mani's entire tribe. I had already come to understand, as I have only now put to paper, Mani's intelligence. I had seen his physique and guessed at his capabilities. How much of a leap of logic would it really have taken, for me to guess that one night Mani would slip out of the irons that lock him in my room, escape into the night, and take that revenge I know I would have taken, were I in his place?

I woke in the early hours, and I have to admit I was happy to find that Mani had liberated himself. It occurred to me moments later that he had, for some reason, chosen to spare my life even though he could have easily slit my throat while I was asleep. I dressed with as much laziness as I could muster - which was a good deal, given my injury - and walked slowly to the Captain's station. My intent had been to give Mani a little more time to make his escape, while still doing my duty and raising the alarm. Somehow, despite my previous observations, I was still shocked to stumble upon the scene of Cabel's murder.

He had obviously not been dead for long. His throat had been slit from ear to ear - a horrible, crimson, bubbling wound - and his body lay collapsed on the floor by a fallen chair. I guessed that Cabel had been writing at his desk when Mani had silently entered and killed him before he could make a single cry for help. The knife used for the task - simple military issue - was still bloodying the papers on Cabel's desk. I restrained myself from simple macabre curiosity and did not look to discover what Cabel had been reading before he died. Neither was I able to run from the room and alert the nearest soldiers of my company.

Kneeling on the floor next to the body was Mani, apparently oblivious to both the scene of death before him, and the certain risk to his life were he to be discovered. His lips moved in what I assumed was a prayer to whichever gods or spirits his people belonged. When he finally stood up, acknowledging my presence with a stare that had none of the resignation nor subservience of the last few weeks, I realised that I had misjudged him. Even with my most charitable and accurate descriptions of his appearance and manner, I had missed the sheer terror of his presence.

In purely statistical terms, I should have had no fear. I am taller than him by a good few inches, and bulkier, too. More to the point, I had a pistol in my belt, and there was no way out of the room other than past me. It should have been my duty to draw that pistol, and either kill him or take him into custody, where a death sentence could be carried out for entertainment in front of massed crowds. For several moments - and it felt like many minutes - I did nothing. What surprises me now, relating this incident, is that Mani was also frozen in space, perhaps unsure of what I would do. Again, he had the opportunity and the motive to kill me, and chose not to take it. I have no doubt that, even facing a firearm, Mani could have used the knife and somehow ended my life in that room. But he did nothing.

"Mani," I said, finally, my voice sounding impossibly and dangerously loud in the dawn air. "Come with me."

I stretched out my empty hand towards him. I had little hope that he would understand. Communication, we had found, was much easier when the context was clear to both of us - a proffered jug of wine; a question about a species of deer in a sketch I had drawn - but here my actions made no sense to either of us.

He had no reason to live. His tribe had been murdered, and he had exacted his revenge. There was no wife or family to whom he could return. And I had no reason to want to see him survive. By all rights, he should have let himself be killed, and I should have killed him. But perhaps neither of us were thinking correctly anymore, and perhaps our tentative attempts at language had finally bridged an impossible gap.

He came with me, in the end - followed me back to my room so silent in his movements that I had to look back every ten yards to make sure he hadn't vanished into the dawn light. No one saw us, partly due to his stealth, and partly due to the early hour. It was cold, this morning, and no one but the two of us had any reason to willingly leave a warm bed for the chilly air of the streets.

It was with great awkwardness that I replaced the iron chain that bound him by an ankle to the wall of my room, despite the fact he had proven that he could escape from it at will. Equals should not hold each other as slaves.

There was suspicion thrown on him once Cabel's body was discovered, of course. He was the only stranger in town, and the only man with any obvious motive. But they found him chained, and he had my word vouching for his good behaviour. Now it has been twelve hours since the murder, and I hear that a travelling tradesman is the most likely suspect. Cabel, it seems, was not the type to make more friends than enemies.

Mani is here, watching me write these words as he looks over my most recent sketches. In the days to come, I will try to liberate him from his chains for good. Now that Cabel is dead, it may be easier to convince whoever is appointed as our new captain that Mani is nothing more than a tame Indian who might as well be put to good use in the field. I have little idea why, at present, it has come to be that I feel more loyalty to this foreigner than I do to my own countrymen.

I suspect that ours may be a friendship born out of necessity.

 

III.

 _1760\. Crossing the Atlantic._

My usual sense of time and space has been thrown asunder by recent events, so I apologise for my lack of accuracy. The reasons behind this failure to properly document the last few weeks will soon become as clear as I can make them. They stand in firm contrast to the boredom I am sure you have experienced, reading through my descriptions of the past year, ever since Cabel died and I took his place as captain of the company.

I realise that, due to the haste with which we left Trois-Rivières, many of my previous entries have become torn or damaged by water, so I will briefly reiterate the events leading up to our present situation.

Cabel, as I have said, was dead by Mani's hand, and Mani and I had formed what I thought at the time to be a silent pact formed by mutual interests. Neither of us had liked Cabel, and neither wished Mani to be executed for his very honourable `crime' of revenge. More than that, however, it was hard to say.

The hunt for Cabel's killer persevered for several weeks, by which time all trails were deemed dry, and those following them lost both heart and interest. There were far more important tasks ahead, as news came that the British had captured Ville de Québec, and would no doubt advance towards Trois-Rivières. My plans to liberate Mani, and engage in some of the trips out into the wilderness I had originally planned, were thwarted by these much more pressing events. Not only was I abruptly put in charge of an entire company of men - the rationale behind this still escapes me - but Mani was thrown under much more suspicion, since his people were known to be in league with the British.

There was little I could do but receive my orders from what remained of the French army, and execute them to the best of my abilities. This meant fortifying the town, and readying my men for what would likely be a battle against incredible odds. It was all pointless, and most of us knew it. Even if we were to win a brief - and impossible - victory, it would have been unheard of for the company of Trois-Rivières to take back New France single-handedly. The war was already over, but we were prohibited from surrendering. We would have to readily lay down our lives for a lost cause.

I loosed Mani from his chains, despite the murmurs of disapproval. We were all dead men, and there was no point in detaining him if he wished to make a break for freedom and perhaps join up with one of the other Iroquois tribes. He stayed, usually following at my heels and assisting with the tasks of the day like any other soldier. Once or twice he did disappear, but always returned with news of troop movements from afar. His French was improving, although he was careful never to speak within the earshot of anyone but me. I suspect that he wanted to preserve the image of himself as a dumb beast to the others. He drew me maps, and patiently explained the situation until he was sure I understood. The information was welcome, but did me little good. There was no way to flee, and no way to get reinforcements. The only real lesson I gained from his scouting missions was that, for some reason, he felt bound to my fate, and to the fate of Trois-Rivières.

Gradually, my perception of him and his place in the world improved, both through his own description and my observation of his behaviour. He was not, as I had assumed, a fierce Iroquois warrior by trade. Yes, he was skilled at hunting and tracking, and could certainly have fulfilled that profession admirably. However, I came to realise that we had much more in common than I had previously thought. He is... Well, if I am being uncharitable I would term him a witch doctor, but I suspect that his charms are based on more than magic and common superstition. I decided to name him a true physician in my thoughts, and hope that I would not be contradicted.

So, for almost a year, we two lived together in Trois-Rivières - both highly educated, skilled men by the estimates of the societies in which we were born, now condemned to the deaths of soldiers, as if all we had ever known was musket fire. It is with no shame that I admit how close we became. There were 586 French souls under my protection in the town, and I could name none as a kindred spirit. Mani became my friend - my eyes and ears - and I soon came to believe that he was the only man in the town interested in protecting me.

By firelight, he would tell me the stories of his people. I never understood all of the words, for he jumped between French, his own language, and our crude system of mime, but he made sure I understood. He told me of the great heroes of the past: Dekanawida and Hayonhwatha, brothers inspired to guide their people to peace and unity. The story was an admirable one, but served only to remind me that the Iroquois, with the sole exception of Mani, were now united against us. It gave me little consolation.

Mani reached out and took my hand, flat between his palms. His skin was cool even as flames danced beside us, as we sat cross-legged by the fire. I don't believe that I even drew breath during that moment. His eyes were fathomless, and for a second I believed that I could see my own face reflected in them, as if they were polished obsidian. He broke the tension with a smile. "Wolf," he said. When I gave him a quizzical look, he must have assumed that I had been unable to understand his pronunciation, for he let loose a long, lupine howl.

It took a little time to understand that he had been, as he explained, looking inside me, and trying to find the spirit who knew my name. I had heard of these beliefs before, in my expeditions to document the local wildlife before my present military career was thrust upon me. They are totem figures - animal representations of human qualities, meant to act as a guide on some kind of spiritual plane. I have little belief in the spiritual - that which I cannot document and sketch seems unlikely to exist at all - but I could grasp a more practical reason for the use of totems. After all, I more than anyone know the value of much animal behaviour. They are not so unlike us, and in many ways are better. What would I give to truly have the speed and fierceness of a wolf? It is not a bad ideal to have.

Mani explained to me the values of the totem figures, and we spent several good hours as he sketched out some of the more exotic species and sub-species that still remained foreign to my eyes. I found it curious, however, when he named the snake as a totem of wisdom and quick-thinking. Surely that should have been my animal guide? I felt a little betrayed, and my arrogant sense of being the smartest man in Trois-Rivières took hold of me for a moment.

"What are you, then?" I demanded.

Mani, however, was undisturbed by my foolish show of pride. "Wolf," he repeated, now sure that I understood.

I asked him if he really thought that I was as proficient a fighter as him, or anything close to the viciousness of a true wolf. He shook his head, like a schoolmaster despairing of a young student. He obviously did not have the words to explain further, or believed that I would wilfully misinterpret whatever he said. Instead, he reached out for my hand again and, this time, gripped it tightly. "Fronsac and Mani," he said, pointing to each of us in turn with his free hand. "Mani and Fronsac."

I had been doing the wolf a disservice, I realised, in equating him only with those qualities of beasts on which men tend to focus. It would have done the auspices of my profession more good for me to remember my training. The wolf, fearsome though he might be, was not known to attack men, even when men frequently hunted wolves for sport. His most remarkable attribute, in France as in the Americas, was loyalty.

I returned that grip on his hand. "Mani and Fronsac," I said.

We lay together that night. Whether this action will disgust and repel me in the future, I have little idea. I suspect not. Even if my middle age finds me with children, a wife, and some esteemed position at court, I hope to retain my youthful ideals. It was not the first time for either of us, although it was not the time to speak of lovers past. I had heard of a tradition amongst the Indians - men dressed as women, or women dressed as men. Mani has explained them to me as people possessed of two spirits, or two natures - the masculine and the feminine. I know similar types from European society - the bardache of shadowy corners and hushed whispers - but I would never put either myself or Mani in such a category. Perhaps, for once, my scientist's urge to define everything has gone unsatisfied.

It was curious to be loved with such powerful intensity and skill as Mani exercised before that fire. Had I not been caught up in my own overwhelming desire and arousal, I am sure that I would be able to depict the night in much more vivid detail. Perhaps it would be best if I did not, but there is little sense of decorum in science. I am happy to report that Mani's strength and grace of movement in our everyday encounters did not desert him in the act of lovemaking. Some may question my use of that word, here. Was it truly love that intertwined our limbs that evening, and made me cry out in the heat of passion? I cannot say, but no other word comes close to adequately expressing my emotions of the occasion.

In the light of the fire, shadows played across his defined musculature, mingling with the dark tattoos on his chest. They seemed to leap out at me in the darkness, tangling me up and drawing me to him like living bonds. I might have come to believe in Mani's animal spirits that night, with smoke in the air, and what could easily have been a supernatural force between us. I realised, as my hands and mouth strayed over his body, feeling him, tasting him, that my previous naturalist studies had been sorely lacking. _This_ was the true and only way I could capture Mani's soul.

It surprised me a little, when the dawn found him lying in my arms, that little had changed. It had been my opinion, then, that bedding a person would irrevocably alter and intensify our relationship. As I kissed him that morning, I realised that my feelings were no more intense than they had been the night before, or the day before that. Only their expression had altered.

"Always," Mani told me, as he tied back that fine hair of his in preparation for another day of work. And it was true. Always did not only mean from now until death, but from the start until the end. It had been forever, since the first time we had met, when the claw marks that now scar my chest were still raw wounds. I had just failed to make any sense of my own observations. A failing of science, rather than a failing of the heart.

And, so, as I have said, little changed. I know this may be hard to believe, but the threat of imminent death made even the events of that night seem insignificant. Our final battle to defend Trois-Rivières was, we knew, imminent, and we all put an almost religious fervour into our daily drills. There was an all-consuming need to believe in something - some unseen force, be it God or pure luck, that would liberate us from our certain fate.

I used what free time I had to attempt to learn more of Mani's language and customs. It may have seemed a futile act to those who witnessed our stilted conversations, or our trips into the forest nearby. For me, there was a sense, however illusory, of finally completing the task for which I had set out to New France so long ago. I would have studied one entirely alien culture before my untimely death at the hands of the British - a death that came steadily closer each day. I could easily imagine I heard the thud of hooves and boots on the roads and grass plains to the North.

The end began with a fervent knocking on my door in the evening, when Mani and I had been talking about my past life in France. I am not sure how many of my descriptions of court life had any resonance for him, but he listened and asked questions with his customary attentiveness. The messenger was one of my lieutenants, and he brought news from our scouts that the British would be in Trois-Rivières by morning. His urgency did little to help any of us, for there was little we could do but try to get our rest while the darkness still held. I suggested that Mani should leave the town before morning. He, alone among us all, had no duty compelling him to stay. Even those with solemnly sworn oaths to the crown of France had been disappearing into the forest in recent days, hoping to find a way back home. Mani assured me with typical confidence that the Iroquois would likely kill them before they reached a port.

The battle itself is an unfortunate blur in my mind. It has always been thus, with me. I suspect that any writer who insists that he is giving a clear-headed remembrance of what occurred during such an episode was, in all probability, nowhere near the fighting. I remember that it took much longer than I had thought it would for the British to advance on us, and for them to break through our defences. The waiting was agony, and then everything moved far too quickly. The man beside me died without a sound, and I realised, when I looked around for assistance, that Mani had vanished. _Good_ , I remember thinking, even though his disappearance suggested that his words to me that night by the fire had been a lie, after all. I did not want to see him dead. That was the last thought I ever had within the walls of Trois-Rivières.

I woke up in what I assumed was the morning of the next day, although I later discovered that almost a week had passed. I had expected to find myself, if not dead, then a prisoner of the enemy, to be interrogated and perhaps exchanged for British prisoners of war. Instead, I was lying in long grass by a tree, and there was no one else near me, so far as I could see. I attempted to sit up, and fell back down as surely as if someone had firmly kicked me in the chest. My left arm appeared more or less useless. If I put any weight on it at all, I came perilously close to fainting.

The culprit appeared to be some kind of wound near my heart, covered with cloth tied down so that I could not hope to tear it off without assistance. My breath was ragged, as if I had just run several miles, and all I had tried to do was sit up. I recalled the incident with the bear, and looked around as best I was able. Hopefully I would appear to be a meagre meal, and I could certainly hear no rustling of leaves nor any other sign of movement. To one side of me was my uniform jacket and, I was surprised to see, this very journal. Had I had it on me when the British attacked? It seemed unlikely. To the other side lay the remnants of a fire. Someone had obviously brought me here. There was no way I could have escaped Trois-Rivières by myself.

"Mani?" I had meant to shout the name, but it came out as more of a choked whisper.

Nevertheless, in less than a minute, he appeared, carrying two slain rabbits, and smiling. "Fronsac," he said, and dropped to a crouch beside me, holding a flask of water to my lips.

That water could have been the most powerful medicine on the planet. Although I had no desire to try and sit up again, I at least felt able to talk and breathe without difficulty. "Trois-Rivières?" I asked, and Mani's face told me that my suspicions were true. "Where are we?"

It was impossible that he did not know, but his expression suggested that there was no obvious answer to my question. The Iroquois hardly dealt in concepts of longitude and latitude. "Safe," he assured me, and touched his fingertips to my forehead.

I believe that I fell asleep instantly.

The return to civilisation came what had to be months later, although I easily lost track of time in the woods, and had no motivation to make an earnest effort to keep count of the days. It was oddly liberating, to be freed of time, my enforced career, and Trois-Rivières. In those days there were only Mani and myself. I asked Mani, when I was still too weak to stand, to bury my uniform. It would no longer do me any worthwhile service, and I was glad to see the back of it. As summer came to New France, and the days became warmer, it was easier for me to dress as Mani did with no fear for pneumonia.

My wound, I discovered, had been no British bullet at all, but an Iroquois arrow. Mani told me this, with a distinctly apologetic tone, as he cleaned it in those first days of freedom. I still have no idea whether I was fortunate to have succumbed to the arrow. It had missed my heart by what I imagined to be a breath of wind. My jacket, torn and bloody, had told me how extraordinarily lucky I was to be alive. Presumably there had been many who had not had a guardian angel to spirit them away from the British invasion.

I healed, just as I had done from the bear's attack, and we set out across the country as quickly as we could. Mani, who was faster and less clumsy than I, set out on scouting missions far ahead of me each day, and reported back. We hardly ever saw other Iroquois, and we stayed away from the roads where the British might travel. By night, we counted stars and made plans for a future that might never exist. It was a huge reassurance to feel him beside me in the darkness, warm and breathing, even though I had little idea what even the next day might bring.

A return to France seemed to be the plan most likely to guarantee my future. However, gaining passage could be difficult. Neither of us had money, or clothes, and both of us would be hindered by our nationalities. My English was passable, but had the wrong accent for the ears of the British soldiers who now occupied much of New France. I suspected that that name would not hold for much longer. I reasoned that a way could be found through Ville de Québec. The question was whether I wanted to find such a passage home. This land was Mani's birthplace, and I could not picture him leaving it without great sorrow. His ancestors had lived and died here, and I was sure that he believed their spirits still walked the plains.

However, I had little desire to stay and live life as an adopted Iroquois. Mani had no tribe, and no family for protection. Could the two of us make it alone against rival tribes, against the British, and against nature itself? I knew that Mani could survive, whatever the obstacles. I also knew that I could not. Even as I rejoiced in the freedom of our new life together, my spirit and my mind hungered for something more: for my books, my studies... for literature and fine wine and a soft bed for the night. These thoughts are petty, I know, but I was not made for a life on the run.

Mani was much less troubled than I about these questions. He had been guiding us towards the harbour of Ville de Québec ever since I was healthy enough to walk by myself each day. It had been a circuitous route, yes, crossing roads at night and rivers by day, but the direction was no mystery to me. It was a certainty that he meant for me to return to the land of my birth. The only mystery was whether he would step onto the boat with me.

I delayed asking him this question that preyed on my mind for many weeks. It was almost certain, I believed, that he would choose to stay, but I did myself the luxury of avoiding a definite answer from him. It was only when smoke from the city started to cast a grey hue on the horizon that we talked.

"Will you come with me to Paris, Mani?"

I suspect that my exact words still baffled him, but the meaning did not. "It is possible?" he said, and it was a moment before I realised that it was a question, not a noncommittal response.

I had no reason to confound him with more words. "Yes," I told him, and hoped that he would understand the fervent hope in my eyes.

"Mani and Fronsac go to Paris," he said, without further explanation.

There was something in me that leapt at that answer, and something else that needed more reassurance. "But your... your spirits."

Mani looked at me with steady eyes. "Wolf in France?"

I laughed. "Yes, of course."

He nodded. "Mani and Fronsac go to Paris."

The physical act of gaining a berth on a ship home was not as easy as it might once have been before the war. Still, neither was it as difficult as I had feared. There was at least one French captain desperate enough for two strong, able-bodied deckhands to be willing to overlook our near-nakedness and Mani's origins. Fortunately Mani's French, by that point, was more than able to comprehend a few yelled orders.

We are more than halfway home as I commit this history to paper. It is the first time since the battle at Trois-Rivières that I have had spare enough hours to do the events of that period justice. I wish I could say that the sea air has done us good. The food is rotten, and Mani was horribly sick for days after our departure. There is little to occupy my brain, but at least we have plenty to do. Now that he is healthy, Mani is constantly running up the mast, looking for land. The ocean disconcerts him, I suspect. I only wonder how he will deal with life in France.

The one thing that is certain is that we will be together. Wolves mate for life, after all, and I could not hope for a better partner.

 

IV.

 _30th September, 1766. Paris._

There is a beast in the Gévaudan. And so my journal is opened once more. I had thought that our adventures were at an end.

It has been five years since I last had any thoughts worth giving up to the ages, and five years since Mani and I undertook our voyage across the Atlantic. In comparison to our encounters with bears and the British in New France, our lives here have been wonderfully mundane. I am a hero, of course. Believe me, I write those words with great amusement. It amazes me that a captain, who lost the very town he was bound to protect and with it all his men, can still be lauded and honoured. I am told that my very survival was superhuman. Besides, I have my fair share of intriguing stories to tell at court, not to mention the sketches that Mani rescued with my journal. They have made me quite a favourite at the Jardin du Roi, and, needless to say, with the ladies. However, after five years and endless courtships, I am still a childless bachelor. I confess to being a little relieved.

And what of Mani? Well, he has been popular, too, although even my friends regard him as more of a specimen - a colonial curiosity - than a man. He lives with me in what used to be my parents' house in Paris. Those who know us assume he is my valet. Those who ask receive the explanation that he is my brother, and that I owe him a life debt for saving my life in New France. I expect that half believe me to be a little crazy, and half suspect the truth. But what is a little libertinism? It is all the fashion at court.

I have slipped back into my old life with surprising ease. In my fine clothes, there is no sign of the scars dug into my flesh, and no suggestion that I have ever been anything but an academic. Still, I have been told that there is a little danger about me these days. My friends from long ago regard me with new eyes. Mani, too, has adapted. His French is good, although it is not in his nature to speak without necessity. In his French clothes, with his hair hidden behind a hat, he could be a native Parisian. I had worried a little that he would cut the hair, and I would no longer find it draped over me in those evening moments when we are alone, but he has never tried to alter it by even an inch.

Still, we are two intelligent men - warriors, even - aching for something more than fawning women and the opera house. It appears that we have not been biding our time for nothing. The wolf has found us once more.

Two years ago, a girl was attacked in the Forêt de Mercoire by a large, wolf-like beast. She was somehow able to drive it off (the details are sketchy, and none from first-hand sources). However, it is believed that the same beast has been responsible for many more deaths in the area. Some say it is a wolf, others a dragon. The superstitious people of the Gévaudan have even suggested that it is Satan himself. They are mostly peasants, and unreliable.

I would have suspected that the entire story had been manufactured in order to give some attention to that godforsaken region, but for recent correspondence with the Marquis d'Apcher. He is an educated man, and from his letters it seems as though he and the other nobility have reason to be concerned about this beast. Women and children are being found dead, their limbs torn off, and the peasants are beginning to doubt the authority of their apparently impotent protectors.

This alone would not tempt me to travel to investigate myself. It is not my responsibility to kill any sort of beast, man or animal. There are hunters for that, and an army, if it comes to it. God knows they have little else to do after our failures in New France. However, the descriptions that the witnesses have forwarded to the Jardin du Roi suggest something more interesting than a simple rabid animal, or even a succession of rabid animals (for one would surely die in much less than two years). I have consulted with Mani, and he has agreed that we should set out, as ordered by no less than the King himself. I suspect that Mani's motivation is more to protect the dozens of wolves being hunted down and slaughtered in the region than to capture the beast itself. Nevertheless, we will go.

We will travel by horseback from Paris, bringing with us an additional pony to carry our baggage. It is mostly mine. Mani has surrendered to the French insistence on decent clothing, but he brings little else but that which he brought years ago from New France. I hope that he will need to use none of his weapons, nor brew his native Iroquois war-paint. My sketchbooks are likely to be the only tools we require.

In the Gévaudan we have been promised lodging and protection from the Marquis. I have heard many good things about his young grandson, Thomas. He is said to have a keen mind, and the type of intellect driven to mischief by boredom. I suspect we will like him, if only because his description reminds me so much of myself as I was when I began to write in this old, battered volume.

I am making myself laugh, casting a look back at the way this journal began, all those years ago, and a world away. I may even be able to make the strained point that I am back where I began: a young Parisian willingly following the promise of adventure to a strange land in search of stranger beasts. Perhaps I am not quite so young in years as I was, although I think few would doubt my impetuous nature. I can only hope that, on this occasion, my journey will end with better results. Besides, this time I come in the company of a friend.

My pack is ready, my many admirers kissed goodbye. Mani is waiting for me by the door. I have everything I need. I can only hope that this expedition leads to something more than a brutal, or brutalised, animal.

I have had enough of beasts.


End file.
